I recently made an awesome sweet and sour brisket in the crockpot. At the
moment, I have a large roast cooking in there with carrots, onions, garlic,
rosemary, wine, salt, pepper, broth, worcestershire sauce, etc... It's making
the house smell really good.

When I posted that message I was in a time zone that was 336 hours behind
GMT. Or something like that. And I admit I cheated on the stew by using
a seasoning packet. However, I would never "just throw everything in the
pot and turn it on" as the instructions suggest. I coated the meat in flour
and browned it in a pan, then deglazed the pan with some red wine.

And pretty much any meat will be tender if you cook it in a crock pot for
eight hours.

For popcorn: a two quart saucepan with a sturdy bottom seems to work just
fine, and as pre-JTS Alton Brown would have pointed out, a dedicated popcorn
pot is a unitasker. It doesn't matter anymore though, since my period of
imprisonment with electric burners ended 14 months ago.

When I posted that message I was in a time zone that was 336 hours behind GMT. Or something like that. And I admit I cheated on the stew by using a seasoning packet. However, I would never "just throw everything in the pot and turn it on" as the instructions suggest. I coated the meat in flour and browned it in a pan, then deglazed the pan with some red wine.

And pretty much any meat will be tender if you cook it in a crock pot for eight hours.

For popcorn: a two quart saucepan with a sturdy bottom seems to work just fine, and as pre-JTS Alton Brown would have pointed out, a dedicated popcorn pot is a unitasker. It doesn't matter anymore though, since my period of imprisonment with electric burners ended 14 months ago.

Locally it is 18,000 seconds past UTC. Your butter dish is a unitasker, as are your paper towel holder, salt and pepper shakers. Get over yourself and don't let TV celebrities run your life. The Whirrly-pop works well on any type of stove.

The benefit to the whirleypop is it helps mix in butter(or caramel) but yes,
it's kind of a one task item, that takes up quite a bit of space. I usually
use my regular big pot to make popcorn. Having grown up on electric, I don't
mind it. Having used gas, I do find it to have some advantages. Being back
on a cheap electric stove SUCKS though, I miss my glass top, way easier to
clean.

That article assumes that the cereal to which pizza is being compared is of the variety that is highly processed and has a lot of added sugar. I'd like to see the comparison made to a whole grain, unsweetened cereal.

Speaking of which, I just discovered today that Quaker is now selling pinhead oats (aka "steel cut" oatmeal) in a quick-cooking variety. I don't know how they pulled it off but I bought a box and am totally going to try it for breakfast this week. I love pinhead oats (cue the "you are what you eat" jokes from our resident wiseasses).

That same site also links to an article which claims that cheese, particularly Swiss cheese, is now known to have enough health benefits to be considered a superfood. Now I need to go out and buy a gigantic wheel of Jarlsberg. I wonder if the same health benefits could be conveyed by the 200 pound Provolone I saw hanging in an Italian deli the other day.

I've started buying the storebrand pinhead oats. They're quick cooking and
way cheaper. I do prefer the texture of the kind in the metal tin though,
and it doesn't take too long if I make them in the pressure cooker. I usually
throw in chia and flax seeds no matter what kind of oatmeal I'm making. My
youngest says I make the best porridge. My older daughter thinks I'm weird.